Below you will find an interview with my friend Bentley Richert. Bentley now teaches at Inman elementary school that was a coworker for many years. Over those years we spent many hours discussing school change. Bentley decided to go back to the classroom and see if all those ideas really make sense.

I think you’ll enjoy our conversation that ranges from authentic engagement to standardized tests. Bentley expreses his ideas about individualization and customization, learning by doing, and the use of technology in the 21st century.

Bentley teaches at Inman Elementary School and has a background as an educational specialist at ESSDACK, teacher at a charter school and as a classroom teacher in the Haven school district.

What’s Become Clear w/ Bentley Richert from Steve Wyckoff on Vimeo.

What’s Become Clear w/ Bentley Richert from Steve Wyckoff on Vimeo.

The federal government, through No Child Left Behind, has set the direction for school change in America. The NCLB act appears to be focused on two issues; develop a set of national standards that are adhered to by all schools, and raise standardized test scores. There is a fair amount of rhetoric around innovation and creativity but very little action.

Recently however, I listened to a very interesting podcast by Neil McCluskey of the Cato Institute. The first thing that I found interesting was that Dr. McCluskey pointed out that since data has been kept in the 1950s, the United States has never led the world in standardized test scores.

Where we have always led the world is in creativity and innovation. And yet, creativity and innovation are exactly the areas we are reducing in order to increase standardization of processes and content. Other countries, such as China, are making a conscious effort to make their students more innovative and creative. No such movement exists in America, in spite of the urging by many researchers and experts. Politicians are hell-bent on raising test scores. At any cost.

The second push by the federal government is to move us to national standards. It’s always pointed out to us that the top 10 or 12 countries on standardized tests (again, who cares) all have national standards. What Dr. McCluskey points out is that the bottom 12 countries all have national standards. There is simply no evidence that national standards lead to higher test scores, even assuming you want higher test scores.

In a time were school change should be all about customization and individualization for every child, our federal government is forcing us in exactly the opposite direction. I hope, but seriously doubt, that there are enough rebels out there telling the federal government to stick it, and doing what’s best for our kids in spite of the consequences, to overcome this disastrous direction. – Steve Wyckoff

Several things have become clear to me when thinking about school change in rural America. I’ve been listening to conversations about declining enrollment for over 20 years. During that time I’ve facilitated goal setting for many boards of education in rural communities. Most of them have a discussion during that goal setting about stealing students from their neighbors. Few, if any, succeed consistently at this goal.

I’ve been thinking about this issue differently over the last year. What we really need to do is to attract new residents to our rural communities. Not an easy task, but it can be done. We do have new families move into our rural communities, just not often enough.

So recently I began to think about this issue from the perspective of a family considering a move to rural America. I think, generally speaking, a family would consider two things in deciding where to relocate.

First, they would want to know about the schools. If it were me, I would want to know what the school could do to help my child become remarkable. No, most parents wouldn’t use the word remarkable, but I think that’s what all of us want for our kids. Unfortunately, we usually settle for our kids surviving the system.

Secondly, they would want to know what the community had to offer. Would my family fit in? Would we be welcomed? Are there things to do, that we enjoy doing? Are the amenities present that we need to live the lifestyle that we desire? Will our finances go further than they did in the city?

A couple of thoughts about answering these questions. First of all our rural communities need to be thinking from this perspective, and as a community take action to develop our community. The same things that would attract a new family will be attractive to the current residents.

This is also a great opportunity to engage our students in real-world experiences that are meaningful and engaging, and at the same time prepare them for the real world. There is no reason that our students couldn’t be involved in all aspects of community development. Their activities would not only be of benefit to the community, but would also facilitate the learning and application of academic skills in a real-world setting.

The new key component  that I’ve learned over the last year is how people find what they want in the 21st century. The first thing we do today when we want to find something is Google it. So we need to teach our rural communities and our schools how to present themselves so that they’re found on Google.

The second part of that key component is social networking. Over 200 million Americans are on Facebook. Our schools and communities need to have a presence on Facebook and work diligently to spread the word about our schools and communities through Facebook and other social media.

As we consider school change it is imperative that we also consider community development, and how to market our schools and communities in the 21st century. Kansas, and almost all of the other 49 states, have substantial rural populations and there is no reason that we can’t educate our kids better and at the same time develop and market our rural communities. Now that would be real school change. – Steve Wyckoff

John Wyrick, superintendent at USD 101 in collaboration with the Erie community are making a bold move into the digital age. They are embarking on a marketing strategy for their school and community utilizing social media and search engine optimization of the community website to attract new visitors and residents

Their first goal is to have 1000 “likes” on their Facebook page. Help them out by clicking the link and liking them!

Erie is part of a larger group engaged in rural education and community development collaboration. There the first district to make a tactical move, But they certainly won’t be the last.

I hope you can see it to help these  rural districts and communities help themselves! PLEASE SPRESD THE WORD FOR THEM!

In my previous post, School change:  so does Oklahoma get it, and Kansas doesn’t?, I was responding to an e-mail sent to me after my post, School change: Oklahoma gets it, Kansas doesn’t. Part of that e-mail asked the question:

Other comments have to do with what the direction of education should be. We keep hearing that we need to change and there is never an answer about what needs to change. I know the long range vision would be to do something different with our educational system but my question is what?

So I’d like to take a shot at answering that question. Again, this is my opinion, and I would love to hear your opinion on this topic. Bear in mind that I’m trying to describe in a few paragraphs what would require months if not years of discussion and transition for full implementation. And my focus is on high schools.

There are three main areas that we need to address; what we want kids to know, do, and be like; what their educational experiences would look like; and how we would organize our schools to facilitate learning.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is what the educational experience would look like for our students. We should begin the transition to learning by doing, rather than learning by sitting and listening. I think that Erie in high school has demonstrated how you can begin to successfully transition to a learning by doing environment.

They have chosen project-based learning, which I would include, but you could also have students solving real-world problems, engaging in real world career experiences, and entrepreneurship opportunities. Stafford high school is a leader in this area. They have students engaged in construction that last year built the first new home in Stafford in almost 25 years. They have students engaged in health sciences who will be certified in areas such as CMA, EMT, and phlebotomists. In addition they will have college credits in all these areas. They also have students in their entrepreneurship center, the SEED Center, that are rationally running their own businesses.

In Oxford students are running the local restaurant, and in Pretty Prairie they are working to have their students run the local grocery store. I believe that all of these, and others based on the needs of the students and the community, should be options as well.

The “what we teach” should be changed to what we want students to know, be able to do, and be like when they graduate. All of our current standards should be reframed in the context of their real-world application. We can actually start this process today by working with teachers to understand how they can validate standards mastered in real-world experiences.

The key to the success of learning by doing experiences is the ability to give core subject academic credit for standards that are mastered and demonstrated in a real-world context. The pieces are in place to do this today.

The last area is how we organize the school day. I’ve written about this before in a blog post titled; School change: how we organize schools makes no sense. The Carnegie schedule is a relic of the past and needs to be abandoned.

Obviously, this is an oversimplification, and addresses only the changes necessary at the high school level. In my opinion the high school level is the most critical piece of the puzzle. If we change high schools, middle level and elementary level educational experiences will naturally align accordingly.

But even with that caveat  there is a great deal of work that would need to be done. But as I identified above there are schools already doing these things. There is nothing magical here. As Ron Edmonds and Larry Lizotte said, “all we lack is the will to do it.” If we want to change schools for the better, and make every student educational experience more relevant and useful we can. –  Steve Wyckoff

I received an email from a superintendent/friend regarding my blog post Oklahoma Gets It, Kansas Doesn’t, and I’d like to respond here so that others with the same questions/thoughts might see my response also.

Your recent article “Oklahoma gets it, Kansas doesn’t” has raised some conversation within our district. One of the comments was “That’s interesting because I was at one of the Kansas conferences he was at last week, and we didn’t have any sessions that covered raising test scores.

I’m assuming you could pick presentations to attend that would avoid the topic of assessments. And while I didn’t hear the keynotes, typically KSDE has brought in speakers who present the bigger picture of the world. So I’m not doubting the validity of the above statement. But, the conference title used to be, “The Fall Assessment Conference.” It has been combined with the annual conference but with a major emphasis still on NCLB, AYP, and standardized tests.

I did a little further digging in the breakout session descriptions and the  topic of assessment, and the variations on the word assessment, was mentioned 71 times; tests was mentioned 58 times. Inspire, and its variations, were mentioned 2 times; and innovation, and its variations, were mentioned 4 times. Creativity, passion, and remarkable  weren’t mentioned in any of the descriptions.

So again I don’t doubt the validity of the statement, but there is no doubt that the focus of this conference was on standardized tests and not on our kids and their futures.

The next comment in the e-mail was;

In fact, we had some speakers from Kansas talking about some of the things these national/international speakers were talking about…”

Again, I don’t doubt the validity of this statement. In fact I had many conversations with individuals about the things that we should be doing in education. And I’m sure that these ideas were talked about in breakout sessions. It is my experience in talking one-on-one with educators that there are some broad areas that we have a high agreement on. Unfortunately policymakers and higher-level administrators aren’t moving the system in that direction. And the reality is, like it or not, our standardized test scores in reading and math are what we are measured by. And a preponderance of the breakout sessions were focused on standardized test scores.

I think the focus at the national level, regardless of the rhetoric, is solely focused on standardized test scores. And regardless of what our policy makers and state-level administrators wish we were doing, they are being forced to comply with the feds desires.

Other comments have to do with what the direction of education should be. We keep hearing that we need to change and there is never an answer about what needs to change. I know the long range vision would be to do something different with our educational system but my question is what?

This discussion is worth an entire blog post, so click this link to read what I believe are the most important changes that need to be made.

I think we do some things very well and there are some areas that frankly we have not been able to change for whatever reason. We as a nation have been accused of not preparing our students for the future and to some extent I would agree with that.

I agree completely. In fact I repeatedly say, and it almost never gets heard, we are doing the best job that we have ever done at what we’ve always done. There’s no doubt that we have optimized the current system. The problem is policymakers and state and federal administrators keep forcing us down the old path.

When policymakers and state and federal administrators told us we needed to raise test scores, we raised test scores. And that’s just the latest mandate that we’ve endured. Unfortunately, higher test scores are not an indicator of a student’s readiness for their future.

I know we have not kept up with the test comparisons around the world but I also know that we include a totally different group of students in the results than most nations.

In my mind comparisons of test scores with other countries are useless. So is the conversation about national standards. The United States has never led the world in standardized test scores since the comparisons began in the 1950s. What we have led the world at is innovation and creativity, both of which are being sacrificed today to achieve higher test scores.

And the advocates for national standards all point to the fact that all of the countries who score better than us on standardized test scores all have national standards. What they fail to mention is the bottom 12 countries and those comparisons also have national standards.

I would caution you to get on the bandwagon of anything that standardizes. We are in an era of customization and individualization. In the education our children receive should be as customizable as any good or service today.

I hope that I have addressed the concerns completely and adequately. I truly appreciate any opportunity to have dialogue on the topic of school change. So please, if you have a comment let me know and let’s talk about it. – Steve Wyckoff

It’s Saturday morning and I intended to get up, drink my coffee, and catch up on the news. But when I checked my e-mail I had a slug of comments from our Facebook group Rural Education and Community Development Collaboration. So I read through them first. Big mistake. I read a post from Craig Stranathan and it pissed me off!

I’m always thinking about school change so when I saw the link that Craig posted for a conference in Oklahoma City I clicked on it. My first response was “WOW!” They are having some of the most influential people in the world speak at their conference. The two that jumped out at me were Sir Ken Robinson and Daniel Pink.

Then I watched the little video on the front page of their website. That’s when I got pissed off.

Oklahoma. Are you kidding me. We make fun of Oklahoma. But here they are hosting a conference that we should be hosting in Kansas.

They’re talking about creativity and innovation. I just attended two recent conferences in Kansas. We’re talking about raising standardized test scores.

They’re talking about preparing their students for the future. In Kansas were talking about preparing our students for the past.

They’re talking about finding every student’s passion. We’re talking about figuring out how to make students passionate about standardized test.

They’re talking about helping every student become remarkable. Were trying to figure out how to make every student a remarkable test-taker.

They’re trying to inspire, were talking about pep rallies to raise test scores.

Thanks Craig! I was in a really good mood! We had a great conversation yesterday with a group of schools really interested in the future of their kids. But compared to what Oklahoma is doing we are in the slow lane being passed by everyone. Were making school change at the speed of a glacier, they’re facing the big issues head on. – Steve Wyckoff

Schools are evolving slowly. Too slowly. The rate of change in society is dramatically faster than the rate of change in schools. School change as it currently exists is losing ground on a daily basis. Our schools are already obsolete and getting more so every day.

As part of the Kansas Education Commission I am extremely concerned that the discussions are still focusing on how to get better at what we’ve always done. We are working extremely hard to improve a one size fits all, factory model system, that even if we reach our goals won’t be satisfactory.

I am utterly amazed at all of the conversations I have with educators who get this. Yet at the upper levels of policymaking and administration, we are still focusing on the past.

The problems are overwhelming. Where do you began? Our system functions under so many misconceptions, old traditions, and outdated policies that I honestly don’t know where to begin.

I once heard Tom Peters explained the best advice is father ever gave him, “Dammit Tom, do something!” Perhaps we should give that same advice to superintendents? I am amazed at how many superintendents are paralyzed by the fear of repercussions for any move they make. A well justified fear, but a paralyzing fear nonetheless.

I worry that we have killed the innovation and creativity among our kids. But we have done even more damage to the creativity and innovation within our system. Educators are terrified to make the kind of systemic change necessary to prepare our kids for the 21st century.

So in my opinion Tom, LET THE REVOLUTION BEGAN! It doesn’t really matter where you start, dammit, do something! – Steve Wyckoff

I couldn’t have said it better … NO REALLY! I COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER! So I’m not going to try. Here is a post from my friend Deb Haneke’s blog. I will take credit for inspiring her to write this post because I placed the link to this video on our group page on Facebook, Rural Education and Community Development Collaboration. And credit Jerry Butler for sending me this intriguing video by Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken hits school change right on the nose!

Deb’s Post …

I’ve heard other presentations by Sir Ken Robinson, but this eleven minute video does a great job of really summarizing many ludicrous things about our current design in education. From the myth that a college degree will guarantee you a job, to the idea that the most important thing about kids is the date of manufacture (meaning we group them and run them through the system based on their birthdate) Sir Ken shines a flashlight on many myths and outdated practices, that are not serving kids nor the economy of this country.

In addition to the profound quote I included below, I also appreciated the research he shared about divergent thinking which he clarified is not the same thing as creativity, but rather an essential capacity for divergent thinking. This longitudinal study clearly showed all persons have the capacity for divergent thinking but it deteriorates over time. According to Sir Ken, education is likely a key factor in these results.

Sir Ken recognizes that it is not teachers who want things this way. Rather he refers to the “gene pool of education.” I hope you enjoy this insightful, and thought-provoking video as much as I did.

It started  some time  ago when I realized not every student needs algebra to be a productive member of society. I, like all educators, had drank the kool aid.I believed that every student needed algebra.

But it kept nagging at me that I couldn’t give sufficient real world examples of the use of algebra in the real world. And I visited all the time with highly successful people who told me they use little of what they learned in algebra, and NEVER in the context they learned it.

A good friend asked his father after heart surgery if he was ever worried he might die. He quipped that, “No, he knew it wasn’t his time” because his algebra teacher told him he’d need algebra someday, and he hadn’t needed it yet, and he knew his teacher wouldn’t lie to him.

All kidding aside …

I think the myth of algebra began with Larry Lezotte and Ron Edmonds. In their research they found that algebra one was the gateway to the advanced curriculum. They didn’t say that students needed to learn algebra to be productive members of society, but rather the  “system” required algebra I before you could take any of the advanced sciences.

We as educators interpreted that to mean that students needed to know algebra to be successful. I simply don’t believe that’s true. Let me be clear, I believe all of us use some algebra on a regular basis. But as far as I can tell the only profession that requires that you know all of algebra, is algebra teachers.

My second experience that leads me to question our math curriculum began as an accident. We have a shortage of engineers in my geographic area. In discussing this problem I began to hear that our students couldn’t pass the three required calculus courses to become engineers. The three required calculus courses were the “flunk out courses.”

Just by chance, an engineer offhandedly told me how hard calculus had been, and that once on the job he never used it. Since then, whenever I have an opportunity to speak to an engineer, I asked them how much they use calculus on the job. By far, the most common response is never.

Interestingly, if I asked the spouse of an engineer they often tell me that their spouse uses calculus all the time. Go figure.

Yesterday, October 13, 2010, I had another one of those experiences that caught my attention. I was in a meeting discussing project-based learning. The people who were present who are actually using project-based learning were saying that the one subject that they have not been able to figure out how to build into projects is math.

It caused me to think that we are approaching math education all wrong. I reflected on Howard Gardner’s book, Five Minds For The Future, where he talks about the need for our students to not just know about a subject, but to practice the discipline of that subject. Our students need to practice the discipline of being a social scientist, not just know a lot about the social sciences etc. etc..

When I applied that thinking the math, I asked myself the question do we really want kids to practice the discipline of mathematicians. The reality is, statistically speaking, none of our students is going to be a mathematician. But all of our students will use math in their future. We approach teaching math as if all of our students are going to be mathematicians.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It seems to me that we should completely rethink how we teach math. And perhaps the need to abandon much of what we expect students to regurgitate on math tests.

Just a blasphemous thought on school change. – Steve Wyckoff